Nunthorpe Village

After a nice lie in this morning I got up and decided to go for a walk. I went the normal route up to the church, but then found another footpath to the old side of Nunthorpe, Nunthorpe Village. I just love the footpaths (they usually cut through pastures) so I spent a good hour trekking through the area. The village was so quaint and cute.

My new friends.

While I was walking I kept seeing this peak. I thought it was another church so I got really excited. Once I made it to a clearing though I saw this:

 Isn't is absolutely beautiful???

I did some research and discovered that the house's name is Grey Towers. It was built by William Innes Hopkins in 1865. His second wife came from a landed family and he built Grey Towers to reflect her status. He was elected Mayor of Middlesbrough in both 1867 and 1868. He was also General Manager of the iron and steel firm of Hopkins, Gilkes and Co. who built the Tay Bridge, then the longest bridge in Europe and an engineering marvel of the time.  In 1879, the bridge collapsed during a bad storm just as a train was passing over it, killing 75 persons. Hopkins took most of the blame and as a result his firm was finished. In 1880, bankrupt and publicly ruined, the family. 

Sir Arthur Dorman became the owner in 1895, chairman of Dorman Long & Co Ltd, the renowned iron and steel makers. After his death the house went up for sale and was bought by 

Lieut.-Col T Gibson Poole who planned to use it as a 

s a sanatorium for consumptives (people suffering from Tuberculosis). Now the mansion is filled with apartments. So cool to find this gem just a couple miles down the road from me!